Massacre

The attack occurred during the Sunday evening service. Sichumiso
Nonxuba, Bassie Mkhumbuzi, Gcinikhaya Makoma and Tobela Mlambisa
approached the church in a vehicle stolen by Mlambisa and Makoma
beforehand. Nonxuba, who commanded the unit, and Makoma entered the
church armed with M26 hand grenades and R4 assault rifles.[1] They threw the grenades and then opened fire on the congregation, killing 11 and wounding 58.[2]

One member of the congregation, Charl van Wyk, who wrote a book about the event (Shooting Back), returned fire with a .38 special
revolver, wounding one of the attackers. At this point they fled the
church. Mkhumbuzi had been ordered to throw four petrol bombs into the
church following the shooting, but abandoned this intention as all four
fled in the vehicle.[2]

Members of the congregation killed were Guy Cooper Javens, Richard
Oliver O'Kill, Gerhard Dennis Harker, Wesley Alfonso Harker, Denise
Gordon, Mirtle Joan Smith, Marita Ackermann, Andrey Kayl, Karamjin Oleg,
Varaksa Velentin and Pavel Valuet.[2]
The last four on this list were Russian seamen attending the service as
part of a church outreach programe. Another Russian seaman, Dmitri
Makogon, lost both legs and an arm in the attack.

Similar attacks

APLA cadres were held responsible for several similar attacks. Among these were the attack on King William's Town Golf Club on 28 November 1992 in which four people were killed, and the attack on the Heidelberg Tavern in Observatory, Cape Town on 31 December 1993, in which four people were killed. Ballistic tests showed that the same rifles were used in the St James and Heidelberg Tavern attacks.

Arrest and trial

Makoma was arrested ten days later and convicted for 11 murders. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison.
Nonxuba, Mlambisa and Mkhumbuzi were subsequently arrested and charged in 1996. They had in the meantime joined the South African National Defence Force as part of the integration of APLA operatives into the new national defence force.[citation needed]

In 1997, while on trial, Nonxuba, Mlambisa and Mkhumbuzi appealed to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission
for amnesty, together with Makoma. They were granted bail pending their
appearance before the TRC. Nonxuba died in a car accident while on
bail.

In this and other APLA amnesty hearings, APLA operatives claimed that
they were following their orders and that they regarded all whites as
legitimate targets as they were complicit in the government's policy of apartheid.
In statements made to the representatives of St James church they did
however say that they were unaware that the selected target was a church
until they arrived in Kenilworth. Dawie Ackerman, husband of one of the
victims, noted that perhaps 35–40% of the congregation were people of
colour, with the counsel for the APLA saying they had assumed all
congregants would be white as the church was in a white area.[2]

Letlapa Mphahlele,
national director of operations for APLA, took responsibility for
ordering the attacks as part of his application for amnesty. He claimed
that he had authorised attacks on white civilians following the killing
of five school children by the Transkei Defence Force in Umtata.[3]

Amnesty in such cases was typically granted in terms of the TRC's
mandate because the crimes were politically motivated, with the
perpetrators following the orders of the APLA commanders, and full
disclosure was made to the TRC.

Although amnesty was granted to the individual perpetrators, the TRC
found that the act itself, along with other APLA/PAC attacks
specifically targeting civilians, were "a gross violation of human
rights" and a "violation of internal [sic] humanitarian law".[4]

Reconciliation

Several of the church members who were injured or who lost family
members in the attacks, as well as Charl van Wyk, who had returned fire
on the attackers, later met and publicly reconciled with the APLA
attackers. [5]

Later developments

On 27 August 2002, Gcinikhaya Makoma was arrested along with six others following a cash-in-transit heist of a Standard Bank cash van in Constantia, Cape Town, in which R1.8 million was stolen.[6]
He and the others were later acquitted, with the magistrate finding
that the prosecution case had been badly put together and that documents
had been falsified by an investigating officer.[7] Gcini­khaya Makoma was eventually found guilty on 16 February 2012[8] of murder and robbery and sentenced to life and 46 years in prison for his role in a December 2007 cash van heist in Parow, Cape Town.

In Oct 2004, Charl Van Wyk became one of the founding members of Gun Owners of South Africa,
(GOSA), an online Civilian Gun Rights ownership group, which is also
involved in public demonstrations against the Firearms Control Act.